Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Carphone Warehouse are trying to give me a free mobile phone, but don't seem able to do so.

It wasn't my idea; for once I do not have that odd compulsion in the back of my head to go and trade in my phone for a newer model. This is probably because a)the model I have has yet to celebrate its first birthday, though it's only got a couple of weeks to go; b) there isn't a phone out there that I like the look of better than the Motorola V3 Razr, and c) I have, for the first time in years, been deliberately avoiding places such as the Carphone Warehouse simply so that I won't be tempted.

Most of you know that I am notoriously weak-willed in these matters, so avoidance of the outlets is vital.

I didn't particularly like the sound of the phone they were trying to hawk me, but since the only stipulation was that I stay with my current network for a further 12 months , which I was planning to do anyway, I reckoned that if they wanted to send me a free phone, why should I care?

Anyway, this morning I got a worried message from their sales rep saying that they had just had an email from Vodafone telling them that I am not entitled to a new phone until 4 March. Off, since I subscribe to O2, but there we are. What worried the rep, though, was the thought that I might already have received a new phone by courier. I haven't, and wasn't expecting to, really. Be interesting if one turns up, though!

In keeping with the trend for having toys put under my nose for consideration, for some reason instead of walking up a flight of stairs, or more likely just shouting, Beastie colonel_maxim emailed me this link to Swords Mart under the title 'shiny'. Ah, the lad knows me too well, and I have to confess to being tempted, though I can't help but wonder what sort of shoddy mess you can buy at those prices.

The real fun of the site though, comes from the occasional and consistently 'miss-spelt' sword names designed to avoid copyright issues. So they sell Nasril instead of Narsil, Sling, instead of Sting and so on.

My particular favourite though, has to be Rider's Stranger Sword. Quality, and only £20 or so.

Maybe not quality, then.

I'm back. It's done and that's that until 4 January. Hurrah!

Returning via North Finchley, I have ventured into toy shops and their ilk for the first time in many moons. I was worried that I shouldn't be able to find what I was after amongst the mountains of tat being sold at sky-high prices, but Lady Luck smiled upon me before my patience ran out; it was a photo-finish, and Lady Luck won by a short head.

Once again, the incomprehensibility of 21st Century life hits me: there is a clear mismatch in my mind between the quality of toys for young pre-school children and the prices we are expected to pay for them (the toys, not the kids). For kids of school age there are some respectable quality toys out there, but it would be cheaper in the long run to put down a payment on a car for their 17th birthday and show them brochures in the intervening years (some day, my boy, all this will be yours).

On the other hand, a trip to Steve's Sounds on Charing Cross Road means that I now have a copy of Kate Bush's Aerial for the princely sum of a tenner. I shall now wander back into my bedroom, collapse in a heap, and listen to what people have been raving about this last six weeks.

I am not leaving the Athenaeum Club again today, with the possible exception of a brief foray across the road for fish and chips around 8'o'clock. Even that may not happen as I consoled myself with a Swedish Meatball sandwich from Subway (the first time I've been in one since the franchise landed from the US). It was very tasty and very large and I am replete. I am even prepared to forgive them for calling them submarine sandwiches, when they are clearly torpedo rolls. I suspect that's another English term destined for the rubbish dump of history now that another US import has arrived.

But it was a very tasty sarnie, and I am willing to forgive and forget.

For now.